She'll offer help to others at conference

BY L.L. BRASIER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story should have said an Arizona businessman created the scholarship that helped Cherish Thomas. This report is correct.

More former foster children in the state are attending college or trade school, overcoming enormous obstacles such as homelessness and poverty -- thanks, in part, to an aggressive push by universities, social service agencies and community leaders.


State records show that the number of foster youths attending college or trade school jumped from 127 in 2004 to 616 in 2009. That number is expected to climb even though the number of youths 18 and older still receiving foster care is declining.

Cherish Thomas, 22, born to a drug-addicted prostitute, was in 20 foster homes before attending the University of Michigan, where she earned a degree in sociology and African-American studies. Now a graduate student there, she plans to tell her story today to more than 100 foster care youths at "Rising Above the Odds Against Me," a conference at Oakland University designed to help steer them toward college.

More of state's foster youths are heading to college

Thomas seemed destined for a life of despair. Born in Lansing to a cocaine-addicted prostitute and a mentally unstable father, she was in foster care before age 1, bouncing from family to family.

She was adopted by a single mother at age 5, but was back in foster care by 11 when her adoptive mother was unable to care for her.

Her childhood was marred by sexual assaults and intermittent homelessness. She spent one summer as a young child living on a playground in Georgia, begging food from strangers.

By 17, she had been in 20 foster placements in a half-dozen states -- a not-uncommon tale among the nation's estimated 800,000 foster care kids.

"It wasn't easy, but it made me who I am today," she told the Free Press.

Sharing her story

Who she is today is a University of Michigan graduate student and motivational speaker.

Thomas, 22, plans to share her remarkable story at a conference she helped organize today at Oakland University. About 200 people, roughly half of them foster care kids, are expected to attend the 2010 Foster Care Leadership Conference "Rising Above the Odds Against Me" to learn about college opportunities.

*Taken From Freep.com: http://www.freep.com/article/20100508/NEWS03/5080320/1001/NEWS/Woman-proves-college-is-possible-for-foster-kids